Jordan said concerned IDF ops in West Bank, settler violence may lead Palestinians to cross border in search of refuge

Jordan is concerned that Palestinians fleeing intensified IDF operations and extremist settler violence in the West Bank will seek to enter the Hashemite Kingdom, the Qatari-owned Al-Araby Al-Jadeed news outlet reports.

According to the report, Jordanian officials fear that as a result of Palestinians crossing into Jordan, sky-high regional tensions will escalate further, leading to increased security risks in the country and across the region as a whole.

Earlier this month, King Abdullah II warned that Jordan would “not allow any escalation in the region to be at the expense of Jordanians or Jordan’s security and safety.”

Echoing the king’s comments, a Jordanian security expert tells Al-Araby that “any displacement of the residents of the West Bank will pose an existential threat to Jordan, and is absolutely rejected by Jordan and the Palestinian people.”

There are also concerns among senior Jordanians that by leaving the West Bank, Palestinians could become permanently displaced, leaving their land empty and at risk of being taken over by settlers, the report states.

This possibility, combined with recent statements by Israeli government ministers that threaten the status quo on the Temple Mount, would destroy “any possibility of a political solution based on the two-state solution, which harms Jordan’s predominant interest in establishing an independent Palestinian state,” posits a Jordanian analyst.